Joey Logano Holds On For Victory at Talladega

Joey Logano

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Joey Logano won his third Xfinity Series race of the season in a thrilling last-lap four-way battle to the finish in Saturday's Winn-Dixie 300 at Talladega Superspeedway.

Logano took advantage of a final push by Elliott Sadler to stay ahead of the pack coming into the final turn and then held off a last-turn charge by Chris Buescher with a huge block on the high side to take home 24th-career series victory.

Brian Scott rallied in the final 300 feet to finish second, followed by Austin Dillon, J.J. Yeley and Joey Gase.

Logano led 14 of the final 18 laps to collect his sixth consecutive top-three finish in the Xfinity Series at Talladega, going back to April of 2009.

"I'm still trying to catch my breath, but it's so intense out there and you're looking at everything in the mirror the whole time, so it was cool to get this thing in victory lane," said Logano.

"There's never a Talladega win that comes easy or not intense at the end of the race. You never know you've got it until the end, just like every other superspeedway race that we have. It's like a combination of the old school draft and the cars hooking up and bumping, so it's kind of a combo of what's going on out there, but it's so fun and so intense."

[adinserter name="GOOGLE AD"]It was that intensity that almost got the better of Logano during the race's first big wreck on lap 74, when nearly a dozen cars tangled while trying to make their way to pit road for green flag stops.

Logano, who was head of the pack that crashed, watch as the spinning, out of control cars slid past him as the leaders slowed down coming to pit road. Logano managed to avoid the wreck while points leader Ty Dillon got tagged from behind by his teammate Brendan Gaughan, sending both spinning down pit road.

Back under green, Logano needed just 15 laps to make his way to the front of the pack, weaving his way past Darrell Wallace, Jr. and Sadler to take over the top spot with 18 laps to go.

Just four laps later, the final caution flag of the day would wave for a crash involving Wallace, Kasey Kahne and Dillon yet again.

The last caution set up an eight-lap sprint to the finish, with Sadler outside of Logano for the restart followed by Buescher and Aric Almirola.

Sadler would flex his muscle quickly, pulling down in front of Logano with a push from Almirola to take the lead on the backstretch.

Logano would not go away quietly, and hooked up with Brian Scott to pull back up to challenge Sadler, running side by side for nearly four laps before finally powering their way past Sadler with three laps to go.

Just a lap later, Scott made a bid for the top spot with a high side move on Logano that backfired, as Sadler and Buescher split Scott down the middle to get in behind Logano.

On the final lap it was Austin Dillon pushing Buescher on the high side and Sadler pushing Logano on the low side as Logano just managed to edge ahead.

[adinserter name="GOOGLE AD"]As they came to the frontstretch, Logano moved up the high side to block a strong charge from Buescher, killing Buescher momentum and allowing Scott and Austin Dillon to pull up for second. Scott looked to have enough of a push to catch Logano but ran out of race track as Logano picked up the victory by just .130 seconds.

Scott's last-lap push earned him his best finish of the season and the fourth runner-up finish of his career while Joey Gase collected his career-best Xfinity Series finish, coming home fifth.

Buescher, who came into the final turn in second, ended up with a sixth-place finish.

"We were close," said Buescher. "The 22 (Logano), it's a product of this racing, he moved up and he blocked us when we had that final run that we needed there at the end. We just couldn't do anything with it."

Despite being involved in two wrecks, Ty Dillon still managed to salvage an eighth-place finish and hold onto the points lead by nine points over Buescher, who moves up to second in the points standings. Defending series champion Chase Elliott, who got caught up on an early-race incident, finished the day 37th and slipped to third in the standings, 28 points behind Dillon. Wallace, Jr. remains fourth in points followed by Regan Smith.

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